Heads Up! They’re back, again. S. 3468 is yet another attempt by the financialists and related banking lobbyists to hamstring efforts to regulate the financial services sector. It’s not like these interests have ever given up their campaign to revert to Business As Usual such that the Wall Street Wizards can become yet another font of ill advised, incomprehensible, albeit highly profitable synthetic or otherwise manufactured financial products — You know, things like those adorable synthetic CDO’s which flooded the financial market with valueless toxic paper.

Here’s the CRS summary of the bill submitted by Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) on behalf of the banking sector:

Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act of 2012 – Authorizes the President to require an independent regulatory agency to: (1) comply, to the extent permitted by law, with regulatory analysis requirements applicable to other federal agencies; (2) provide the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs with an assessment of the costs and benefits of a proposed or final significant rule (i.e., a rule that is likely to have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more and is likely to adversely affect sectors of the economy in a material way) and an assessment of costs and benefits of alternatives to the rule; and (3) submit to the Administrator for review any proposed or final significant rule.

Prohibits judicial review of the compliance or noncompliance of an independent regulatory agency with the requirements of this Act.

Translation: If any of the financial regulatory agencies, like the SEC, the OCC, the FDIC, or the CFTC wants to approve regulations which might have a “significant effect” on some bank’s bottom line, then the agency would have to present a “cost – benefit analysis,” and submit the rule for administrative (read executive branch) review.

There are some very cogent reason to be extremely skeptical about this bill.

#1. It dramatically changes the relationship between the administration (executive branch) and the independent financial regulators. The SEC, et. al. are supposed to be independent of the executive branch, which is why their leadership is subject to confirmation. To require that the agencies present their proposed rules for executive approval inserts presidential politics directly into the rule making process.

Those who find the diminution of regulatory oversight disturbing will not be pleased with this proposal. Nor will those who decry the transference of yet more power to the executive branch. There’s nothing here for either end of the political and ideological spectrum.

#2. It invites endless litigation. S. 3468 could be alternately named the Wall Street Attorneys’ Full Employment Act. For those of us who believe that the interminable foot-dragging on CFTC regulations of the derivatives market has gone on long enough, this is entirely too much, [CFTC law] the Portman bill merely serves to add yet another bureaucratic roadblock before regulations can be finalized. [Lieberman/Collins pdf]

#3. It prevents agencies from acting in a timely manner. Again, inserting a secondary layer of “review” invites both executive interference and financial sector slow walking before any effective oversight of financial institutions can be effected.

#4. It is redundant. All the agencies involved, with the single exception of the Federal Reserve, are already required to do formal cost-benefit analyses of proposals. In case no one had noticed during the attempts to get the provisions of the Dodd Frank Act implemented that the banks have been availing themselves of these requirements to slow down the whole process — they have. All this bill accomplishes is to slow the process down from a crawl to a drag. Here’s why:

“The thirteen new analytic requirements this legislation could impose are only the beginning of the delays and burdens it would create. The mandated OIRA review of significant rules would take up to six months. In addition, the review process could force agencies to go back to the drawing board or do a re-proposal of the rule, which could add years to the regulatory process. While agencies could overrule an OIRA determination that a rule or a cost-benefit analysis was inadequate, such a step would render the regulation highly susceptible to court challenge. It would make industry attempts to overturn new rules in court almost inevitable. The increased risk of court reversal will discourage independent financial agencies from finalizing any regulation that receives a negative OIRA review.” [AFR pdf] (emphasis added)

In short, what we have here is a bill that simply refuses to die… and one which is unnecessary, unwarranted, and merely serves to benefit the financialists who don’t want oversight of their speculation in the Wall Street Casino.

Perhaps we might initiate newly elected Nevada Senator Dean Heller’s in-box with a few e-mails indicating that this is not a bill which deserves the support of 99.9% of the American public?